Really Only About The Third To Last Paragraph

Before I had children, my opinion on spanking was fairly loose. I didn't think it was a bad thing. At all. When I was growing up, I got spanked---for very specific crimes in which I knew if I was caught, I would get spanked. Going into other people's home without permission or going off of our street boundaries. There was an occasional misplaced spank, for mouthing off and such.

After we had Bo and he got older, we found ourselves swatting his bum a lot. It filled me with a lot of cognitive dissonance (come on, give it to me, it's the only phrase I remember from my college classes, just let me use it okay!). I knew there had to be a better way, but it took effort to think of the better ways and spanking just got the job done too. Let me be clear, Bo has always been very responsive and obedient, so it wasn't that prevalent. And it was more of a swat.

Around the time he was two, I started telling J I wanted to eliminate spanking all together. We needed to save it for the big crimes. And there were some. Like fingerpainting with his excrement on the bedroom wall. Four different times.

So, it got better, but we as parents, are sometimes slow learners.

Then, the summer after Avee was born, we moved into a house in Salt Lake City. Shortly after moving in, an old friend of mine called me from Vermont and said she had a young college friend who'd just found herself temporarily without housing and asked if I could help her out. I drove downtown and picked her up and she ended up staying with us for a month. She was a nice girl.

But she fancied herself a better mother than me.

The interesting thing was, Bo couldn't stand her. He didn't want anything to do with her. My little boy who loved everyone, avoided her at all costs. It was so perplexing to me and I would try to talk him into liking her. I would find myself discrediting his feelings about her---and the mom instinct in me knew I shouldn't be doing that; but I really didn't understand his strong dislike for her. So I would allow her to bribe him. "Come sit with me and I'll give you a piece of candy." Well, he wasn't stupid---he'd sit with her long enough to get the candy.

Then one day, Bo fingerpainted with poop on the wall again. He did it at naptime so it often wasn't discovered right away. It would take time for the smell to waft through the rest of the house. :) Sorry, that's gross. Anyway, the first two times Bo did it, J's brother was babysitting and by the time I got home, it was much too late after the fact to administer a "punishment". There was no way he'd make the connection. So, the 3rd time he did it and I was around to swiftly discipline, I decided I would not spank and try stern talking and bore any desire to be naughty out of him, by lecturing. I talked and talked and talked and made him help me clean it and talked about how yucky and smelly it was, etc. Yeah, I was winging it. On an average day as a mother, I have no idea what I'm doing.

Well, apparently Miss Thang who lived with us, didn't think that was enough. And she kept saying he needed a spank and a 30 minute timeout. I may not know what I'm doing, but I DID know that a 30 minute time out on a child who had just turned 2 was a joke. So I told her I wasn't going to do that. After my lecturing, I set him off to play. With nonpoop things.

At the time, my car was in the shop so I had to pick up J at work. I had to leave Bo with Miss Thang and J's 14 year old brother because we didn't have a carseat in J's beater.

I got out to the car and realized I had forgotten something so I dashed back into the house.

And there I heard my precious baby boy sobbing in his crib.

I ran to him and asked him what was wrong. He said, "Miss Thang, panka my bum". I was DEVASTATED. Absolutely devastated. Looking back, I'm a little shocked at how devastated I was. But then again, I'm still a mom, so it doesn't surprise me that much I guess. Miss Thang was nowhere to be found. I grabbed Bo out of the crib and hugged and kissed him and told him how sorry I was, and started crying myself. I took him to my bewildered brother-in-law who had been innocently playing on the computer with headphones on. I told him to take Bo on a walk and not come back home for 45 minutes unless one of them was bleeding or dead.

I got in the car and cried all the way to go get J. I know that my baby getting spanked is nothing compared to the abuse some other mother's children experience, but I felt for a second I knew what it felt like. Helpless. I felt like a bad mom for leaving my child in that situation. Of course, I had no way of knowing Miss Thang would be so awful as to administer her own punishment after I had left, but I still felt like a horrible mother that my child had suffered at her hand.

Suddenly it all clicked. This may not have been the first time she had taken matters into her own hands. I was usually home, I don't think I had left him in her care more than once or twice, but I suddenly remembered a few times of him coming back upstairs from where she stayed, a little upset. She had most likely been mean to him because she didn't want him around.

But when we were around, she was all fun and games and wanted him to love her. But Bo ain't stupid. Never has been.

I made up my mind then, I would always trust Bo's instincts. His are even better than mine. Avee's, not so much. She swears at ants and sliding glass doors. She can't be trusted. But Bo can be.

There have been a couple of incidents since then when I've found Bo to be a great judge of character, solidifying my resolve to trust him.

So. The whole reason for this post....since we moved here, he has decided he doesn't like our next door neighbor. He's an 11 year old boy, "A", who, from all I can tell, is perfectly nice. He walks around with a butterfly net and mason jars and catches bugs most of the time.

One day Bo ran in through the back door and burst into tears. When I asked what was wrong he wailed, "A was so mean to me!" I asked what A did. "He told me to get off the fence!" Well, I think that's actually a good thing A did. Bo shouldn't be on the fence. I told Bo as much. "But he said it with a mean look on his face!"

After that, anytime A has come within 100 feet of Bo outside, Bo will come inside. Without complaint. He will gladly sit on the couch with nothing to do, if he's safe from mean ol' A. One day I went out and talked to A. I honestly don't feel like I was being taken, he seems like a genuinely decent, even sweet, kid. That particular day, I brought Bo out, holding his hand and said, "I really think A is a nice boy, why don't you try playing out here." Bo felt buoyed up by me, I'm sure---and he took the leap. He cried when it was time to come in (he usually doesn't) and I could hear him howling with laughter outside, several times. One time I looked out and saw A and another big kid doing a sword fight show for the other kids. Bo was loving it.

When Bo came in he said how he thought A was nice after all. All was well.

Then, suddenly out of nowhere, A's on the bad list again and I will see Bo come tearing into the house like the bogey man himself is on his tail. While we are driving, when Bo does most of his out loud thinking, he'll say, "I will NEVOH play pokemon with A, nevoh. And if I comes outside, I will come in our house as fast as lightening" He's clearly been thinking about how awful A is.

I really think there's a little prejudice going on here, but I can't be sure. The other thing is, A is hardly ever around. He'd really rather be collecting bugs. How mean can a bug-collecting 11 year old be?

So, with a little background on my history with Bo, what do you think? Should I just let him indulge in his fear/dislike of A or do I try to cultivate an attitude of tolerance and talk him through (aka "force") him to get over this. I'm hesitant to disregard his feelings because I'm a granola crunchin' hippie who thinks my four year old should guide me in all ways that we go. Er, rather, I already was really wrong once and he has a pretty clean track record.

I have 10 children in my living room right now. All talking really loudly. One of them just informed me he can't stand to hear babies cry. I'd say he's certainly in the wrong house.

Bo just opened the door for his little four year old friend and exclaimed, "Oh! It's YOU! I keep forgetting what you look like!" Man I love that kid.